Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos
Exhibition at Gropius Bau, Berlin, DE
29.04. – 05.09.2021

“Through Woven Cosmos I try to understand the cultural meaning of weaving beyond materials and technique. This is also deeply linked to the challenges of our time: questions of sustainability, social responsibility and spirituality. For instance: what can be the healing function of objects?” – Hella Jongerius, 2021

Over three decades, the artist and industrial designer Hella Jongerius has engaged with urgent topics such as sustainable innovation, responsible production and societal regeneration. With the solo exhibition Woven Cosmos, from 29 April to 5 September 2021 the Gropius Bau presents to a broad public this unique and path-breaking figure from the realm of design and applied arts.

Trained as an industrial designer, Jongerius asks essential questions such as: how can we design a sustainable future through traditional crafts? How can objects be used to heal, inspire and connect? Often focussing on the cultural, economic, technical and philosophical aspects of textiles and weaving, Jongerius’s installations emphasize open-ended process over fixed result. Arising from a durational engagement with the Gropius Bau space that began in autumn 2020, Woven Cosmos shows new works and a user-activated installation that will develop over the course of the solo exhibition.

At the heart of Jongerius’s work is the link between craft and industry, as well as the reparative potential of making. Her research into ancient cultural technologies such as weaving offers much-needed perspectives on prescient questions of responsibility and sustainability. Informed by twenty-five years of work with textile, Woven Cosmos is rooted in Jongerius’s original philosophy spanning design, sustainability and spiritualism. Through her open-ended on-site research Jongerius asks us to reconsider how we relate to the objects, our world and one another.

Woven Cosmos is the result of collaborative research with the Berlin-based Jongeriuslab design team. Jongerius is developing a number of installations that fill the rooms of the Gropius Bau, including a loom for three-dimensional weaving, a synergetic method for spinning yarn and woven structures proposed as architectural elements. Jongeriuslab will be working in the exhibition spaces every day.

The show is closely entwined with the history of the Gropius Bau, once a Museum and School of the Decorative Arts with its own workshops, a place where different disciplines came together. Taking a cue from this history, Jongerius brought her Jongeriuslab design studio to the Gropius Bau to produce work on site in the months leading up to the exhibition.

About Hella Jongerius

Hella Jongerius (*1963, the Netherlands) is one of the world’s leading designers, known for her research-driven approach and vigorous work on uniting craftsmanship and industrial production, infusing mass produced objects with imperfection, sensibility and character. She founded her Jongeriuslab design studio in 1993, and has worked on commissioned projects for Vitra, Maharam, the interior design of the Delegates’ Lounge of the United Nations Headquarters and the cabin interiors for the Dutch airline KLM. She has also initiated many independent projects, with exhibitions at the Design Museum London (2017), Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2017), the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (2018) and Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2019). Jongerius’s work can be found in the permanent collections including the MoMA, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Since 2009 she has lived and worked in Berlin.

The exhibition Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos is curated by Stephanie Rosenthal with Clara Meister

We hope the exhibition and associated programme can run as planned, but some changes may be necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gropius Bau
Niederkirchnerstraße 7
10963 Berlin
www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/

More information on the exhibition:
https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/berliner-festspiele/programm/bfs-gesamtprogramm/programmdetail_331289.html

More information on Hella Jongerius:
http://www.jongeriuslab.com